


in spite of the uneven odds

by persephonie



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Established Relationship, F/M, Fluff, Post-Canon, Post-Season/Series 06
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-07
Updated: 2020-09-07
Packaged: 2021-03-07 00:41:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,400
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26344303
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/persephonie/pseuds/persephonie
Summary: “Stiles,” Lydia says again, staring at him incredulously as he continues to ramble on, though her voice has started to shake a little, “a promise ring? What are we, high school sweethearts in the ’50s?”
Relationships: Lydia Martin/Stiles Stilinski
Comments: 10
Kudos: 70





	in spite of the uneven odds

Stiles is always prepared for anything, and that includes the quirks of sharing a living space with a banshee.

It’s the hottest month of the summer; they’re about six weeks into their relationship and Lydia has already started a habit of leaving her things in odd corners of his bedroom. Things important enough for her to make the effort of driving back to his place after midnight for, and by then it’s not worth it for her to drive the great length of nine minutes home.

They don’t talk all that much about their relationship. It’s not something that can be easily put into words; ‘dating’ sounds too crude to describe the depth of their feelings for each other, and they’d skipped that awkward ‘first date’ phase and settled comfortably into the ‘we’re always going to be a phenomenally important part of each other’s lives no matter what’ phase. This includes unspoken arrangements of Lydia staying over, which is rarely a problem since the sheriff is so used to having her over that he’s moved his cruiser a few inches from its designated spot to make room for Lydia’s Prius (and he has _never_ done that for the jeep, Stiles huffs).

It includes semi-awkward family dinners with Lydia’s dad, whom (thank _God_ ) they almost never get to see, because his family doesn’t like Lydia all that much (a fact Stiles will _never_ be able to understand).

For Stiles, this also includes adapting to her banshee-magic self. He learns that the voices are always there, and everything Lydia does is just a distraction from them. He learns that they make her twitch and jerk in her sleep sometimes, and that waking up at 3 AM to pee also means seeing Lydia stand in the middle of his room, unspeaking and unmoving, staring glassy-eyed out the window (the first time this happens, he damn near has a heart attack and curses himself for watching _The Conjuring_ the night before).

Stiles learns, best of all, that he has the power to pull her back. He always has, as Deaton had pointed out so long ago, but he’d never felt more of a significant presence in her life than when he sees Lydia smile at him, in the haze of her visions, realising where she is and breaking free from the voices that haunt her.

* * *

Stiles is always prepared for anything, but every now and then it gets much worse than usual. Sometimes the voices bring nightmares with them, and with their excellent track record of supernatural horrors, he can only imagine what it is this time.

Lydia’s ear-splitting shriek reaches him first before it lulls into a breathy, shaky sob. Stiles jolts awake and his hands immediately search through the pitch-dark for her. He sees Lydia’s hands outstretched, and she’s shaking so violently and crying out something he can barely make out.

He pulls her close to him, as close as he can, and so quickly that she crashes into his chest and then they’re both shaking, both muttering quietly to each other and to themselves.

_Stiles... come back. Please. Come back. STILES!_

_Shh, Lydia, I’m here. I love you. Shh, I’m here. I love you. You’re safe. I love you, Lydia..._

His words eventually drown out her sobbing, and the shaking stops, and slowly her hands find their way around his waist, and she’s crying silently into his neck. They stay that way for a while, Stiles repeating the same three words again and again, breathes them into her until she feels them on every inch of her skin, and very slowly, they pull away at the same time.

Lydia’s breathing is steady again, but her face is still hot with her tears despite Stiles wiping away at her cheeks. He brings his lips to her forehead so softly that she very nearly starts crying again. His lips find their way to her eyelids, and then her nose (she starts to pull away because God knows she’s snotty and so, so gross but he doesn’t care, kisses her nose again anyway), and then down to her chin, where the better part of her tears are gathered.

“Lydia, hey,” Stiles calls, smiling at her even though it’s so dark in the room. Her face is still warm in his hands, and she nods.

“It’s the Ghost Riders,” he says, not asks, because he knows. _He always knows._ She nods again.

“This time it’s different.” Lydia’s voice is still so shaky. Instinctively, he rubs her back. She finds the strength to keep talking. “This time I do remember. After. After they...”

“Shh, it’s okay,” Stiles doesn’t let her finish. He pulls her to him once more. “I’m okay. I promise. I’m here. I love you, Lydia. I’m not leaving you. Okay?”

“Okay,” she rasps back, her voice completely failing her now.

“Hey,” he says. He touches her chin gently. “Feeling better?”

“Mm,” she manages.

“Good.” Stiles meets her lips with his own, and she smiles into the kiss. They work at each other back and forth before pulling back, both a little breathless. He tucks a loose strand of her hair behind her ear.

 _I didn’t say it back_. A beat, a pause, a gap in space-time continuum. _You don’t have to_.

(She did, eventually, just a few days before graduation, when Stiles made her laugh so hard she snorted, and then he looked at her like he would die for her, and she knew he would and it scared her, it scared her so much that the three words slipped casually out of her mouth, and she saw a grin break out across his cheeks as he asked, urged, begged, _Say it again_ , and she’d said it many times after.)

With the Ghost Riders still vaguely in her mind now, and remembering how they ripped him away from her so violently that she’s certain it tore a part of her soul, her tongue feels heavy again with the words she always meant to say that night in his jeep.

“Think you can go back to sleep?” Stiles asks, and she nods.

“I love you, Stiles,” she says, feeling weightless and free, “so much.”

Lydia doesn’t let go of his waist, not even when he’s settling back into his pillow. She rests her head on his chest and listens to that measured confirmation that he’s here, and he’s breathing, and she knows he will be okay. She falls asleep to the steady rhythm of his heartbeat.

* * *

The sun greets them a little late; it’s already warm, and the house is quiet if not for Stiles’ faint snoring. Lydia peels her eyes open slowly, aware of the weight of Stiles’ arm resting on her side. She rolls on her back to face him and is momentarily struck by his sharply defined features; his countless moles, his dark eyebrows that wear thin near his temples, how peaceful he looks in his sleep.

“Morning,” he says into her hair, eyes still closed.

“Hi,” she breathes, smiling up at him, a knee-jerk reaction by now.

“Say it again,” he pleads, and immediately she blushes.

“ _Hi._ ”

“Oh ha-ha, you’re funny.” He plants a quick kiss on her lips before sitting up and stretching widely so his shirt rides up a little. “Okay, wait here.”

Lydia waits for all of thirteen minutes before her impatience gets the best of her and she follows after him downstairs. She catches a whiff of pancakes and heads into the kitchen, where Stiles is flattening them down onto a plate.

“What are you doing?”

“Wha—” Stiles jumps, almost dropping the second pancake, but something else does hit the ground with a small clink. “I was gonna make us breakfast. In bed.”

“What’s that?” In the sunlight, her eyes catch something glinting faintly on the floor.

“Tha—that’s nothing,” Stiles mutters too quickly. “Will you just go back to bed, please?”

“Stiles,” Lydia says, more firmly this time, raising a brow, “what... is... that?”

Stiles sighs, his hands shaking slightly as he goes to pick it up.

“Okay, look, it’s not like I’m proposing to you or anything,” he starts, and Lydia’s eyes widen in... surprise? Fear? He can’t tell, and frankly he’s scared to. “I mean, not yet, at least, we’ve only been together for like, a few weeks, but... well, it’s a promise ring. Sort of? I mean, yes, it is. I don’t know why I said ‘sort of’. It’s just, well, you know I love you, Lydia, _obviously_ , and I know you love me, and so it’s not like we really need this, but, well, okay, this doesn’t make sense, I have to explain—”

“Stiles,” Lydia says again, staring at him incredulously as he continues to ramble on, though her voice has started to shake a little, “a promise ring? What are we, high school sweethearts in the ’50s?”

“I know,” Stiles groans, “I know, but look, I can _explain_ , okay... I got this back in high school... God, I am _never_ letting Scott talk me into these freaking romantic gestures _again_... well, I mean...”

“You got this when we were in school?” Lydia purses her lips thoughtfully. “But we weren’t together yet.”

“I know, _God_ ,” Stiles says, and he feels like banging his head against the counter, “what I meant was... well, I got this at the start of senior year. After a very regretfully drunken night with one sappy Scott McCall.”

Lydia squints her eyes at him. “I’m not following.”

“Look, Lydia,” he says, running his hand through his hair, “I just knew, okay? Senior year. I knew that... it’s _you_. It’s always been you. We’d been through so much by then, and you were _always_ there with me, through everything. Lydia... you brought me back. You saved my life. That was it for me. There was no going back from that. I’d always planned to tell you, you know, what I told you in my jeep, just... not in the way it happened. And so I’ve been holding on to this thing since the start of senior year because, I don’t know, maybe I’m an idiot, and because I knew, and I _needed_ to tell you that I knew. And... well, maybe it’s because I’ve learned too much about you already, and we became friends, but... if you didn’t feel the same way then, I would be okay with that. But then all that crap happened... and,” he takes a deep breath, “and I told you to get away from me, and you said... you said you weren’t leaving me. Then I _really_ knew.”

In the sunlight, Stiles notices Lydia’s eyes are shining. He takes her by the hands and pulls her closer to him. She clamps her lips together nervously and smiles at him; that same smile she gave him on their very last day of high school when he'd realised everything between them had changed, the same one she tried to hide when she was sprawled on his bed the day he got detention for pulling the fire alarm, the smile that had set his fifteen-year-plan in motion when he’d miraculously scored the winning shot at his first ever lacrosse game.

Stiles _knows_ this smile.

He presses the ring gently into her palm. It’s a simple gold band, nothing too elaborate; it can go with all of her outfits, and she loves that it looks like nothing yet means everything.

“I love it.”

“You do?” He plucks it out of her palm and slips it effortlessly onto her finger. She nods, feeling the sudden weight of it on her hand.

“So, a promise ring, hm?” Lydia raises an eyebrow at him teasingly.

“Alas, Scott McCall, our very own Romeo Wolf.” Stiles rolls his eyes with affection for his best friend. “Yes, a promise ring. Like, I promise to visit you at MIT for at least three weekends every month.”

“Oh, no you don’t.” Lydia glares at him. “Well, I promise to call you... a lot. _Especially_ when they assign you the best cases.”

“Oh, ho-ho,” Stiles purses his lips. “Then I promise to take you with me on one of those cases. Wherever or whenever that’s gonna be.”

Their battle of wits lull for a moment, and Lydia smiles at him again. “I promise that time and distance won’t change a thing.”

After all, they’d braved a year of the Ghost Riders, a year where Stiles was erased from existence, and even _then_ she couldn’t shake him, so what’s a four-hour flight? The next words come easily to her because after all, though they're not really teenagers anymore, they're not yet adults, and they still have time to pretend that they're hanging in this strange balance of being still too young and having grown too fast.

“I promise I’ll always love you.”

Stiles’ breath catches in his throat, the way it always does when she says the word. “I’ll always love you, too.”

**+.**

“Lyds.” His voice is direct and crystal clear. There is a unmissable shake in it that she catches, and her heartbeat starts to pick up. “I did it.”

“Oh, thank _God_ ,” she sighs in relief.

Stiles laughs. “What, you were worried about me?”

“Well, what with all those late night calls... I was preparing myself to feel guilty. Of course, I always believed you could do it... but we both know you’re not the best at focusing. And I don’t think I’d forgive myself if I, in any way, stopped you from passing—”

“ _Lydia._ Oh my God.” Stiles’ voice softens. “Babe, just listen to me.”

“What is it?” Her heartbeat picks up again. _Oh._ “Where’d they put you?”

Lydia braces herself for the worst. Virginia is only four hours away, and yet the first ache she’d felt from just how much she _missed_ him was something she’d never prepared for. She tries not to think about him being stationed in Sacramento or Phoenix or, God forbid, _Portland_. Her train of thought is working so deliriously that she misses at least half of his speech.

“... so, I guess you’ll be showing me around my first week. We could go to the Museum of Fine Arts like you said you’d been dying to take me...” He notices she’s not responding. “Lydia?”

“You’ll be here,” she breathes.

“I’ll be there.”

She can practically hear Stiles grinning. She doesn’t realise she already is.

“See you _real_ soon, Lyds.”

**Author's Note:**

> Just to clarify, the ring in question is the one that can be seen [on Lydia's hand in 6x20](https://youtu.be/VKi_Sws1GYs?t=30), when she and Stiles hold hands in the library while they attempt to save Scott.


End file.
